


Mio Amico, Amore Mio

by amsch (calendulae)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A Sketchbook Full of Bucky, Accidentally Romantic Gondola Ride, Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Halloween Costume As Means of Seduction, Italy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oh my god they were roommates!, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Stranded in a Tiny Tuscan Town, Uh Oh He's Hot Now, study abroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17736008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendulae/pseuds/amsch
Summary: Bucky Barnes disappeared from Steve’s life when they were fourteen, just after sharing their first kiss.Which is why Steve’s—surprised, is one way of putting it—to suddenly be face to face with Bucky six years later. In Italy. In Steve’s apartment. Their apartment?Studying abroad in Florence has been a dream of Steve’s for a long time—he’s got an internship in art conservation and a whole lot of plans for how autumn in this incredible country is going to go. But somehow the universe has found a way to shake things up, with Bucky assigned as his roommate for the semester.It’s proving difficult, surrounded by art, wine, and gelato, not to get swept up in the unresolved feelings Steve thought he’d put behind him. And Steve’s pretty sure Bucky isn’t immune either. Being paired up in the most romantic country in the world has to be a sign they’re meant to rekindle their spark.





	Mio Amico, Amore Mio

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my two lovely artists who did fantastic work! Sinkhol did the digital art and the post on tumblr can be found [here](http://sinkhol.tumblr.com/post/182808722012/my-art-for-mio-amico-amore-mio-by-calendulae-as). And CarburetorCastiel did the aesthetic board which can be found [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt3d-9gA0_z/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1d3xiffu5go17).
> 
>  
> 
> This fic would not exist if it wasn't for Charlotte/[odette-and-odile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odetteandodile/pseuds/odetteandodile), who encouraged me literally every step of the way, from getting (gently bullying) me to actually start writing again, helping me with plot/kissing details, scene setting, line editing, gollum-screeching at the right moments, alpha, beta, zeta etc etc THANK YOU I LOVE YOU
> 
> And thanks to my self-assigned hypewoman and resident gelato enthusiast Snuzz/spacerenegades, your enthusiasm means a lot to me! Absolutely invaluable! (other than the cash i paid you to hype me on twitter) JK JK

                                                                        

 

 

Steve hadn’t expected the jackhammers. Or the sheer amount of smells and the muggy August heat that was gathering under his winter coat, which he was wearing only because it absolutely did not fit in his precariously tall backpack. Italy was already an assault on the senses, and he’d only just stepped off his red eye flight an hour ago. He’d hauled himself and his luggage into a taxi, written down an address for the driver, and prayed he wouldn’t get scammed too badly on his first day outside the US.

Watching the outskirts of Florence pass by, he thought about how lucky he was to be here. Getting to study abroad was a privilege, and one he’d worked towards, pinching every penny, for the better part of a year. Now he was finally here, finally ready for his big adventure in Europe. This was his destiny! Or something like that, he thought, as the taxi screeched to a halt on an alarmingly narrow street and the driver started screaming in Italian at a Vespa that had swerved to avoid hitting them. He left some bills on the console for his fare and started down the street towards number 21, admiring the tall yellow facades, with faded green shutters thrown open to let in the bright sun. He’d exchanged flight details with his new flatmate over a few brief emails, and since jbarnes@ashwood.edu had arrived that morning, he pressed the buzzer and hoped he was home.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s, uh, Steve. Your roommate, from email. Or, not _from_ email, but we talked over ema-”

The door buzzed open.

Steve eyed the steep, narrow staircase. His apartment was on the fifth floor. He hoisted his backpack up further, adjusted his coat, and cursed his inefficient packing skills.

The door to the apartment had been left ajar for him, so he wobbled in on shaky legs and immediately dumped his backpack with a thud, ripping off his coat and letting that fall to the ground as well. The tile floor was looking very welcoming...so cool and clean…he was so sweaty…

A voice broke into his heat-addled reverie. “Hi...I’m-”

He looked up and met his new roommate's eyes, taking in his face. His first thought, upon seeing a jawline that could cut glass, smoky blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, and dark brown hair was _I’m fucked,_ closely followed by _what the fuck?_

“Bucky?”

It was absolutely Bucky—there was no doubting it. Steve’s staunch, singular ally in the trenches of middle school, Steve’s most all-consuming crush to date, Steve’s first goddamn kiss. Just a something-more-than-best-friend who had dropped out of Steve’s life at the age of 14 as suddenly as he’d appeared, devastating Steve with a loss he couldn’t even fully comprehend at the time.

Bucky looked stricken. Steve’s stomach dropped for a terrifying second.

“Steve? Steve Rogers?” His face softened into a smile— _that devastating smile, it was exactly the same_ —and he laughed. “What are the chances?”

They instinctively stepped towards each other, and there was a moment where they both hesitated with their hands hanging in the air, unsure whether to go in for a handshake or a hug. _Fuck it_ , Steve thought, and pulled Bucky into a hug. They hadn’t seen each other in half a dozen years, but somehow his body fit into Steve’s like a missing puzzle piece.

They both drew back and took each other in. Steve didn’t miss the way Bucky’s eyes lingered on his frame, so much different than last time they’d seen each other.

“Wow—I did not expect to come all the way to Italy only to hang out with my best friend from middle school. Even if he did get hot.”

Steve blushed and rolled his eyes.

“I hit a growth spurt a couple years ago. And you didn’t turn out so bad yourself.”

“Second puberty—it is a wonderful and terrible thing.”

Steve looked around the apartment for the first time, taking in the cheery yellow walls, framed retro travel prints, and red tile floors. Picking up his bag, he headed into the sunny kitchen, with two narrow bedrooms and a bathroom off of a small living room.

He beelined to the window, threw open the shutters with a flourish, and stuck the top half of his body out.

“I’ve always wanted to do this!”  

Bucky joined him at the window. The view, probably unspectacular to an Italian, was mostly red tile rooftops and the steeples of churches, with a sliver of the famous Duomo Cathedral visible not to far off in the distance. Steve sighed happily and rested his chin on his hands.

Bucky watched him for a minute with a small smile, and then nudged Steve’s shoulder with his his.

“C’mon, you probably want to get settled. Why don’t you put your stuff away—I’m in the bedroom on the left—and then….gelato?”

 

 

* * *

 

They found a spot on the Ponte Vecchio where they could lean against the sun warmed stone and enjoy their gelato, Steve with stracciatella, Bucky with dark chocolate, watching the sun set over the river.

“So, how did you end up here?” Steve asked. “Or, I guess I should be asking what you’ve even been doing the last sixish years.”

“First question: I took a plane. Second, I dunno...just the usual stuff. I finished high school, did a year of community college, did a year of private college, then came here.”

“God, Bucky,” Steve said with an exasperated laugh, “could you possibly give me a more vague answer? Why Florence? Where did you move to when you left Brooklyn? What college are you at now? Do you still like the black jellybeans like a fucking weirdo?”

“Okay, you know what, cool it, Mr….Mr. Question Man!”

Steve snorted into his gelato. “Mr. Question Man? That’s really the best you got?”

Bucky tried his best to look affronted. “I stand by Mr. Question Man as a valid insult. And the black jellybeans are an acquired taste! Maybe one day your palate will be refined enough to enjoy them.”

Steve scoffed and bumped his hip against Bucky’s.

“So, we moved to Michigan, but I didn’t stay there long. I lived a couple different places finishing high school. It’s a long story. But now I go to Ashwood, it’s this tiny college in the shitty part of Ohio. Not like you, I saw that Columbia email handle, you nerd.”

Steve took a giant bite of gelato to avoid responding to this.

“So,” he said with his mouth full, “Why Florence?”

Bucky’s mouth turned down. He looked surprisingly unhappy.

“To be honest...it just kind of happened. I got a spot on the program last minute through my brother-in-law, who works at Ashwood. Obviously I’m happy to be here, but,” he hesitated, looking around at centuries-old bridge they were sitting on, with the setting sun glinting gold off the water below them. “It’s complicated,” he finished, giving Steve a smile that didn’t fully reach his eyes. “What about you, then? Why Florence, jellybeans, college, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Well, Florence, that one’s easy. I’ve always wanted to come here. You know how I used to, ah, do art?”

“Yes Steve, I remember you ‘doing art’. If I remember correctly, you were doing it all day, all the time, in class, getting your fucking charcoal all over my textbooks every time I loaned them to you because you kept losing yours—”

“Okay, okay!” Steve threw up his hands in defeat. “Yes, so I still love art, although it’s mostly art history these days. I sketch whenever I can, though, and I still have a charcoal problem. And a misplacing things problem. Florence, though—it’s like art lover’s paradise. This is the birthplace of Renaissance art! The Uffizi is world-famous! I’ve been dying to come here and soak it up since I first saw pictures in a travel brochure when I was like, ten.” He knew he was gushing, but it was a lost cause at this point. Botticelli paintings and Michelangelo sculptures were literally in walking distance and he was losing his shit about it in front of his very cool new (old?) friend.

Bucky was watching him with that small, unreadable smile again. “Are you studying art in school?”

The Birth of Venus withered in Steve’s mind’s eye, replaced by an endless scroll of blindingly white Excel spreadsheets.

“Business management.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “Not what I expected from Steve Rogers, notorious troublemaker.”

“Art history isn’t practical. I got a scholarship to Columbia, that’s the only way I’m attending college at all. I have to make it worth it and major in something that will guarantee a job.”

The sun was nearly set now, the last glimmers of a cotton-candy pink streaking the dark sky above the hills outside the city. Their gelato was long gone, leaving only sticky fingers behind, and Steve did not want to think about the future of corporate double-speak and all-important dollar signs waiting for him back in the US.

“Anyways,” he said, “I’m here to soak as much art into my bloodstream as is physically possible in 5 months. I audit art history classes whenever I can, and one of the professors who lets me sit in got me an internship in art conservation. I start tomorrow.”

His stomach jolted as the words hit him. _Tomorrow_. He was here in Florence with, of all the people in the world, Bucky Barnes. He glanced over to where Bucky was leaning next to him to find that Bucky was already looking at him. Something electric zinged between them.

“Have you ever had that feeling, like, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be?” Bucky asked. “It’s almost like deja vu, but you just _know_ that you’re in the right place at the right time with exactly the person who’s supposed to be there with you? And maybe, somehow, everything is going to work out?”

"Yeah," Steve responded, still not quite able to look away. "Yeah, I think I might have."

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning was their orientation, and a blur of information and faces. There was also a walking tour around the center of the city, where his apartment and school were located, along with most of the major historical landmarks he’d researched obsessively.  He kept gasping and grabbing Bucky’s arm—to the delight of the professor leading the group, who clearly recognized a kindred spirit. Bucky was less delighted at the jump-scare arm grabbing, but listened attentively enough as Steve regurgitated Wikipedia pages at him. The rest of their classmates had assumed they’d come to Italy together, showing up as a pair to the welcome brunch that morning and sticking close by each other’s sides, and neither Steve nor Bucky had yet to correct anyone.

The classmates mostly blended together. There was an array of frat-type boys in snapbacks, a few nearly identical girls in sorority sweatshirts, and some angsty art-student loners. Steve didn’t have the chance to form an opinion about most of them, let alone remember all their names, with the exception of one eccentric pair: Natasha and Clint (relationship status: unclear), the former elegantly fluent in Italian and the latter declaring that he didn’t plan to learn any Italian or history, only eat as much food as was humanly possible and get fat doing it. 

By the afternoon, Steve was tired of polite mingling. Clint was showing Bucky an endless scroll of pictures of his beloved dog, back in the US with his neighbor, when Steve gratefully excused himself to head to his internship.

 

A few whirlwind hours later, Steve rejoined the group at their welcome dinner.

“I got to touch a 15th century fresco!” He whispered to Bucky as he slid into the empty seat next to him. The Italian history teacher, Professor Rossi, was in the middle of a heavily accented, long winded speech to the hungry, jetlagged group of students.

“What is a fresco?” Bucky whispered back.

Steve shot him a look of horror. “It’s basically a painting on a wall, you heathen. Giancarlo, he’s the master conservator who I’m shadowing, he’s amazing. I think I made a good impression! I’ll tell you about it later. When do we get to eat?”

As if in response to the question, waiters began to emerge from the back of the cavern-like restaurant. The students immediately perked up, swarming the dishes of pasta like a pack of wild dogs as Professor Rossi trailed off and sat down, looking put out. 

Steve shoveled eggplant parmesan into his mouth like the walking stomach he was and half-listened to the conversations around him, his mind still on his internship. Bucky was talking about science fiction books with a student from Howard University across the table, Gabe, who was in the advanced Italian track. Thoughts of tiny sable brushes and gold leaf drained out of Steve’s mind, replaced by...Bucky. It was a weird experience, he mused, to be simultaneously getting to know adult Bucky for the first time, essentially meeting a whole new person, but also being able to see the ghost of the awkward teenager he’d been. During the years they’d known each other in Brooklyn, they’d spent so much time together that sometimes Steve had felt like he knew Bucky’s face better than his own. Steve couldn’t ignore that Bucky had grown into himself well, his chubby baby cheeks replaced by strong bone structure. He seemed comfortable in his body, too, long legs and broad shoulders emphasized by his just-this-side-of-tight black jeans and fitted grey sweater. He was charming, yes—Steve was pretty sure half the girls in the program had a crush already—but underneath the congeniality Steve could still see the solitary, sensitive boy he’d been. They’d both been angry at the world, in that unspecified, volatile adolescent way, and that was one of the things that drew them together when they were young. But it seemed that Bucky had learned how to hide that part of himself, perhaps better than Steve had. He’d become someone everyone liked, but no one really knew.

 

After dinner, the students drifted off to their respective apartments. Clint and Natasha zoomed away on a gorgeous black and red Vespa that she airily claimed had been ‘a gift’. Bucky and Steve wandered towards the piazza nearest their apartment, where they found a bench to sit and digest. Italians were taking their post-dinner _passeggiata_ , calling out greetings to each other as they strolled and stopping to chat with the local shop owners, who were closing up for the night. Steve watched an elderly couple make their way slowly across the piazza, hand in hand.

“A lot different from New York, isn’t it?” Bucky asked.

“Less hotdogs, that’s for sure. Pigeons look the same, though.”

“You’re still there, right? Do you live with your mom?”

Steve shook his head. “She passed away when I was 18. She got sick,” he said simply. He still missed her every day.

Bucky laid his hand briefly on Steve’s knee. “I’m sorry, Steve. Your mom was...she was amazing.”

“I know.” Steve smiled at him. “I still miss her every day. I deferred for a year while she was getting treatment, but after she died I left Brooklyn and moved closer to Columbia. It was where she’d always wanted me to go, so...I went. The last two years have been...well. I take my business classes, take art classes, work, do homework, sleep. That’s about it.”

Bucky looked thoughtful. “Sounds lonely.”

Steve nodded. The truth was, he _was_ lonely, but the word didn’t seem to encompass the deep, bone-hurting ache of knowing that the one person who’d loved him more than anyone, his one person who would never choose to leave him, was gone.

“What about your family?” Steve asked, casting about for something to take his mind off his life in New York. Bucky’s shoulders tensed, and suddenly Steve remembered the few times he’d been to the Barnes apartment over the years they’d been friends. There’d been an atmosphere of chaos and disorder, so different form Steve’s orderly, cozy home with his mom. Bucky had been a surprise baby long after his parents were tired of parenting, and the dingy apartment was filled to the brim with his much-older sisters and their drama, always a screeching baby and a screaming fight with some no-good boyfriend.

“I don’t talk to them much, except Becca. I live with her now,” Bucky said. “My dad finally took off for good when we were in high school and my mom freaked out and sent me to live with my grandparents. That’s why I left Brooklyn so suddenly. They shuffled me around between whatever family member could be convinced to take the moody teenager until Becca invited me to come stay. I think she feels guilty. She got me into Ashwood and convinced me to do a computer science degree even though it’s kind of pointless.”

“You’re studying computer science and you said I was a nerd?” Steve asked, bumping his shoulder into Bucky's and aiming for something light.

“Well, yeah. You got me there. I already make websites and apps and stuff for people, so classes are pretty boring.”

“Wait, so you’re like a hacker? Are you like-” Steve mimed typing furiously, “I’m in! I’ve hacked the mainframe, gonna just decrypt this top secret file-”

“God, Steve, it’s not 1995! And I plead the fifth on whether or not I am a ‘hacker’. That is between me and the FBI agent who watches me through my webcam. Anyways…” Bucky hesitated and his face grew serious again. “After I left—I didn’t just—I thought about you, you know. I missed you, a lot.”

“I missed you too. I never really...I haven’t had another friend like you, Buck.”

They both studiously watched a little girl chase after bubbles her father was blowing across the piazza.  

“I used to imagine—I hope this isn’t weird to say. I’d be in some freezing library basement hiding from everyone, or in detention or whatever, and I’d try to picture what you were doing in New York City at that very moment...you’d be at your kitchen table with your mom, or also in detention, or at the park, the one with our treehouse where we, ah—”

A vivid flash of memory hit Steve—the last time they’d been in their treehouse. When they’d kissed, his first one. And then the next day Bucky had been gone.

Bucky cleared his throat.

“Sounds like you’ve been lonely too, Bucky.”

“I guess you could say that.”

 

The first few weeks of the semester flew by, once orientation was over and classes and explorations began.

Around them, the leaves turned to match Florence’s palette of soft golds, muted greens, and burnt orange. Already, it seemed, Florence felt like home as Steve and Bucky learned to navigate the anarchic traffic and narrow, winding streets. Every morning that Steve got to wake up, throw his shutters open, and breathe in the crisp fall air felt like a revelation.

Every day that he got to explore this beautiful, centuries-old city with Bucky at his side, their friendship renewing and strengthening, felt too good to be true.

Steve was obsessed with Florence, yes, but he found himself also obsessed with Bucky’s outrageous bedhead and sleepy eyes in the morning, and making him laugh so that his nose got all crinkly, and the way he painstakingly attempted to converse in Italian with the irritable grocery store cashiers.

And between the laughter and the grocery shopping and the daily gelato, their weeks began to take on a rhythm.

 

Weekends were for day trips around Tuscany and museums. Steve cried in the Uffizi and Bucky, to his credit, only looked mildly embarrassed as he patted Steve’s shoulder and explained to the concerned museum guards in halting Italian that “ _Mio amico è felice, perchè l’arte e molto bella._ ”

Sundays in particular were Steve’s favorite, when they developed a habit of taking a picnic lunch to Boboli gardens, finding a respite from the busyness of the city under the dappled light of a big tree, eating fresh cheese and a warm, crusty baguette with fruit and chocolate like they were a stock photo of European life.

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice cut through Steve’s post-food haze. He was pretty sure he’d eaten almost a pound of cheese just now. “Have you...noticed anything about the statues? Around here?”

Steve cracked an eye and saw Bucky peering thoughtfully at the fountain in the center of the small, manicured area they’d discovered to hang out in today.

“Like what?” Steve asked.

“Uhhh,” Bucky said. “Like they haven’t...got any dicks?”

“Oh!” Steve said, holding a finger up in the air. “I know this one!” He propped himself up on his elbows. “There was this one Medici, you know, the family that ruled Florence for like a hundred years and built all the palaces here in Florence, who was super religious. And he wanted to impress the current pope, who was like in a whole tizzy about how people were making art that was too sexy, and sex bad, everyone needs to stop making sculptures where Satan is a dreamboat et cetera, et cetera. So this Medici had all the dicks chiseled off. A dark day in Florence’s history.”

He looked away from the fountain to find Bucky was watching him with one of his crooked, unreadable smiles.

“What?” Steve said.

“You’re pretty smart, Rogers,” Bucky said, laying back down on the grass and closing his eyes. “I like that.”

 

During the week, there were double espressos and still-warm, doughy pastries in the morning from their favorite cafe on their way to classes, and each afternoon Steve trekked across the river to the workshop in the Oltrarno neighborhood, where he was thriving under Giancarlo’s tutelage. Bucky seemed to do a lot of aimless wandering around the city while Steve was out, occasionally with Clint or Natasha, or worked on indecipherable (to Steve, anyways) coding projects on his laptop. When the workshop closed up, the Florentines heading home to their families, Bucky was usually outside. He’d be leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets like he’d just happened to chance upon that spot. But everyone—including Steve’s increasingly cheeky colleagues—knew he came to walk Steve home, listening as he rhapsodized about torn canvases and flaking wood panels and the science of climate control.

 

Clint and Natasha joined them for dinner most evenings, whether they were trying out a new hole-in-the-wall spot for Tuscan specialties, or trying their hands at making endless variations on pasta at home. Or, more often than not, eating pizza - glorious, hot, fresh pizza dripping with mozzarella.

The first time they tried Florence’s most well known pizza spot, after waiting in line for half an hour, they plopped down on the curb right there in front of the busy restaurant to eat it while it was hot.

“Hey!” Clint said, affronted, as they opened their individual boxes. “Nat’s pizza is in the shape of a heart! I didn’t get a heart! Did you guys get hearts?” he asked, turning to Steve and Bucky.

“Only a lopsided oblong here,” Steve said sadly.

Bucky smirked and tilted his box to show a heart. He and Natasha high fived.

“The blondes strike out agai…” he trailed off.

Clint was going in on his pizza in a manner that had all three of them staring, open mouthed.

“I obviously deserve a heart the most,” Clint said with his mouth full, fixated on his pizza. He closed his eyes and moaned.

“Damn, Clint, take that thing on a date first or something,” Bucky said.

Clint nimbly flipped him off with one hand while shoving the rest of his pizza in his mouth with the other.

 

They consumed gelato like there was no tomorrow. Clint had a grueling “gelato every day” rule, and he and Bucky were attempting to never have the same flavor twice. “The secret,” Bucky told Steve, conspiratorially, “is to look at the banana flavor. If the place is selling banana gelato that’s like, any shade of yellow, you walk right out—got it, Steve?” Steve nodded, solemnly, and Bucky laughed, punching him on the arm. “Because the like, fruit part of banana isn’t yellow, it’s a weird mushy grey. So if it’s yellow it’s fake shit for tourists.” Bucky smirked. “See, I know stuff too.” Steve hummed into his cone of nocciola and didn’t disagree.

 

Steve was almost grateful to the steep stairs to their apartment for helping balance out the sheer amount of food he was eating. He hadn’t wanted to pass out at the top of them since the first day he’d climbed them with his whole backpack and winter coat, but he _did_ still frequently have to catch his breath at the top, which he assumed meant he must be getting some decent exercise from them. 

And also— aside from the cardio aspect— they meant he got to admire Bucky’s ass when he followed him up. And it was a good ass. Steve was forced to come the realization that his appreciation for it and the rest of the equally nice body attached might be a little more than...strictly aesthetic.  

It was a realization he tried hard not to examine too closely, until a wine tasting tour with their food and culture class when he realized exactly how bad he had it. 

After an especially dark red...something (Steve had lost track after the third pour), he found himself fixated on Bucky’s mouth unable quite to look away. Bucky’s lips were stained by the rich, velvety wine, a pink flush from the alcohol high on his cheekbones, laughing at something Natasha had said. His hair looked particularly soft and—the word Steve’s mind was supplying at the moment was ‘touseldy’.

Bucky flicked his eyes to Steve’s, and he bit his bottom lip. Steve thought he might dissolve into a puddle of wine right there on the cellar floor.

“Dude, are you okay?” Clint asked, looking concerned. Steve attempted to wrangle his face into neutrality as Bucky, the corners of his mouth turned up in what Steve thought was a particularly unfair way, finished off his glass of wine.

“I’m...good,” Steve managed. What had just happened? Natasha was looking between the two of them like the cat that got the cream. “It’s just. A lot. Of wine.”

The conversation moved on as everyone agreed, yes, they were all fairly drunk, should they go out after this? Visit the bakery that only opened after midnight? Maybe, Steve lied to himself, carbs with nutella and/or melted cheese would satisfy whatever other cravings he was currently having as well. Denial was always worth a shot.

 

* * *

 

“Room 21, Johnson and Chen. Room 22, Garcia and O’Brien, Room 23…”

Professor Bianchi continued to read out room assignments as the group of wet, miserable students huddled in the hotel lobby. The whole class was on an overnight trip to Venice, and it had started off on the wrong foot with a painfully early departure, a heavy downpour and a long, wet walk in the rain from the bus depot. By the time they arrived in central Venice and made it to their hotel, everyone was miserable and shivering.

“Room 34, Rogers and Barton…”

Steve perked up at his name and Clint’s together, and Clint gave him a thumbs up from across the room. He felt a small twinge hearing Bucky’s name read out after one of the other students. It felt strange to think of him sleeping further away than on the other side of the wall.

 After dropping off their bags, the group headed out on a walking tour, where they were herded around to the major sights in a heavy drizzle. Venice was prone to flooding, and everyone’s feet were quickly soaked as they sloshed through the Piazza San Marco and into the Basilica. The hushed, gilded interior was incredible, although it was hard to appreciate while corralled inside a narrow walkway and moved along at a brisk pace. Steve’s fingertips itched to touch the walls, step out of the conveyor-belt line and just stand there for hours taking in the details.

“You’re getting all heated about those mosaics, aren’t you?” Bucky whispered, leaning over. “Getting all worked up, imagining conservating them, getting reeeal up close and personal…am I right?”

Steve laughed at Bucky’s ridiculous leer. “What can I say, Byzantine mosaics turn me on.”

They stepped back out into the piazza and he looked around at the group. Most of the students looked tired and bored, and their professor was clearly trying to hurry this whole thing along so she could go get a hot, alcoholic drink in a warm bar. Clint and Natasha were nowhere to be seen, giving Steve an idea.

“Hey, want to ditch this whole group thing? We could go off on our own and do some actual exploring.”

Bucky’s face lit up and he grabbed Steve by the shoulders. “You are a genius! Why didn’t I think of that like three hours ago? Yes! Please! Let’s go now while Bianchi is consulting the map for the 80th time.”

They ducked down a side street just as the rain stopped. Steve couldn’t help but feel a little giddy. Bucky pulled his hood off and pushed his wet hair off of his forehead, grinning at Steve.  

“Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s get lost,” Steve replied, linking his arm through Bucky’s.

 

Turned out, getting lost in Venice was ridiculously easy. The canals wound around each other like serpents, each street seeming to follow its own mysterious path. Steve’s sense of direction was completely turned around, and he and Bucky chose turns at random. Now that they were slightly removed from the tyranny of commercialized tourism, it was clear Bucky was infatuated with Venice’s mystique.

“I feel like I’m in a fantasy novel! The winged lions! Every single door looks like a magic portal!”

Steve couldn’t help but grin at his enthusiasm. It was true, there was something undeniably otherworldly about the streets they were walking now. It felt like they were in their own private Venice, and they were the only two people inhabiting it. The dense fog made for a muffled silence, still except for the soft lapping of the canal water.

“Kinda feeling more horror right now, to be honest. Is it just me or is it like...deserted?”

“Okay, the fog is a little eerie. And the masks everywhere, and all the fucking marionettes, and...okay, I see where you’re getting horror. I’m creeped out now by the all the puppets, actually.”

Steve spotted a cozy, lit-up window through the fog. “Tea House,” he read aloud from the sign. “That sounds perfect.”

They settled in at a table next to the window with a steaming pot of peppermint tea and three slices of cake to share.

Steve hummed happily as he took a bite of apple cake. “This reminds me of my mom.”

“Remember when you broke your nose the first time, and your mom made me learn how to reset it ‘for the next time’?”

“She was right though. If I recall correctly, you had to reset it not once but two more times in the next year.”

“I mostly remember the blood, and the crying, and the time I had to do it with a broken finger from fighting Tommy Robinson behind Waffle House.”

“Oh yeah!” Steve laughed. “That was a good one. Didn’t we go back and get waffles after my mom splinted your finger?”

“Sure did. And they were delicious. Not as good as this chocolate thing though. Have you tried this?”

Once the cake was gone, they lapsed into a comfortable silence as they nursed their tea. Steve was watching the sky darken when he felt Bucky nudge his foot under the table, and he looked across the table to meet Bucky’s eyes. They smiled at each other absently, content and full of cake. It was easy between them, so comfortable that Steve found himself opening his mouth and asking about Bucky’s life back in the US. He hadn’t exactly been avoiding the topic, but Bucky had seemed reluctant to talk about it. But for whatever reason, in the hushed coziness of their corner table on the canal, he felt like it was the right time.

“So, what’s Becca up to these days? She was always my favorite Barnes sister.”

“She’s good. She’s happy, and I’m happy for her, but it’s just...complicated.” Bucky began slowly. Then he took a deep breath, and the next words seemed to tumble out in a rush. “She invited me to move in and it was going well, but then she met Bill, and then he moved in, and then she got pregnant, and it’s just been a mess. She feels guilty that our parents were shitty, and she can be kind of smothering, and the whole thing pisses Bill off, like I’m ruining his happy little family or something. So he got me the spot on this program to get rid of me, like I said, and also I hate Ashwood.”

Steve was a little surprised at getting so much from Bucky in one go, but suspected that there was more he hadn’t been able to say yet. So he waited for Bucky to go on.

“It’s like, this tiny, private religious school. The classes are a joke. Everyone knows everything about everyone. It’s so claustrophobic. And I can’t be….you know...out,” he finished. Bucky took a sip of tea and the tops of his ears turned red. Steve wasn’t surprised, obviously, given that they had kissed—not to mention that Bucky had said Steve was hot the very first time they saw each other again—but neither of them had really brought it up.

“That sounds...really shitty,” he said, trying to imbue it with as much sympathy as he could, but not really sure where Bucky wanted to go with the conversation.  Steve had been wondering himself how to bring up the topic of sexuality—if he needed to, if he should—but despite all the times he tried to practice how he might casually inform Bucky that he might be, could be available that way, no words came to him right now as he scrambled for them.

Bucky winced and and stood up.

“We should get back to the hotel. It’s getting dark.”

“Oh—right. Guess it is.”

Steve had the uncomfortable feeling as they pulled on their coats and scarves that he’d hesitated a second too long. It was like tripping over a stair in your own house, one that should have been muscle memory.

They walked alongside the dark water of the canal in silence, the stillness of the city even more magnified in the dusk. It was soon obvious that neither of them had any idea how to get back to anywhere familiar.

“Shit. No cell reception. Do you still have that map from the hotel?”

Steve dug the soggy paper map out of his pocket, but after several fruitless minutes it was clear the map was no good since they couldn’t even figure out where they were on it in the first place.  They wandered for a bit trying to find a street sign until one of the garish, touristy gondolas came poling down the canal towards them.

“Uh, _pardone_ ,” Steve called. “We’re lost. Can you show us how to get back to here?” He pointed on the map to where their hotel was marked.

The gondolier glanced at the map and then smile wolfishly. “How about I take you instead. Vacation in Venezia is not complete without romantic gondola ride,” he wheelded. “It will be verrrrry long walk, one hour walk to get back. On my gondola, it will take 15 minutes. Very good price.”

Bucky and Steve looked at each other, and Steve shrugged. The gondolier named a price that, all in all, could have been _more_ ridiculous, so they begrudgingly climbed in and sat down as Marco, as he introduced himself, lovingly tucked a blanket over their laps.

Marco started singing almost immediately after setting off in a truly awful tenor. Bucky buried his face in Steve’s shoulder, trying to contain hysterical giggling.

“You are lovers, no?” Marco asked after a few minutes. Bucky shot up from where he had leaning his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Do not worry, amico,” Marco said to him. “I am a Romantic. I appreciate all kinds of love! I see the special bond between you and your handsome blonde friend.” He winked at Steve. Steve began to correct Marco, but he was cut off when Marco delicately laid a finger over his lips and shushed him. “No lies here, handsome blonde Americano. Only truth. And the truth is love.” Bucky was laughing hysterically again and Steve was sure he was bright red. Marco started singing again and continued until he dropped them off in front of their hotel, where he blew them a kiss. “Farewell, sweet young lovers,” he cried as he drifted off into the night.

Steve hoped his face wasn’t still bright red as he mumbled something to Bucky about changing his socks and jogged to his room, closing the door behind him. Why was he letting a cheesy gondolier’s teasing get to him? He flopped onto his bed and covered his face. The squirmy feeling in his stomach from Marco’s remarks competed for attention with the smell of Bucky’s hair that was still lingering on his jacket. He took a few deep breaths, the sweet, citrus-y scent filling his nose until he felt calm. “Keep it together,” he muttered at himself in the mirror as he headed back out.  

 

The whole group had dinner at a family-style restaurant together, after which everyone headed back to the hotel for an early bedtime. “Early bedtime” of course being code for everyone quietly rearranging their assigned room locations in order to drink and get up to other kinds of closed-door shenanigans without Professor Bianchi having to intervene. Clint briefly appeared in his and Steve’s room to grab his backpack. “If you need me, I’ll be in Natasha’s room,” he said, pulling on a black hoodie. “Well, either upstairs or somewhere with no cell service. Maybe underground? Or on a boat. Not that we’re going to go to that fucking awesome cemetery island, because that would be illegal. Anyways, lates potates!”

Steve, who unlike everyone else legitimately _was_ tired from an afternoon of wandering, was settling into bed and resolutely not thinking about haunted cemetery islands when he heard a soft knock on his door. He opened it, expecting Clint, only to find Bucky standing there in his familiar pajamas instead, looking half-asleep.

“Mike is snoring SO loud, and I saw Clint going to Natasha’s room...can I sleep in here?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Bucky got into the other bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

“G’night Stevie,” he mumbled, already drifting off.

It was funny, Steve had been living with Bucky for months now, but he hadn’t ever seen him asleep. He looked so young, his eyelashes splayed across his cheeks in a dark fan. A rush of old feelings welled up. It was the “Stevie” that had done it. He swallowed, the memory of Bucky calling him that when they’d kissed resurfacing vividly, murmuring it into Steve’s mouth in a hoarse, almost desperate way as they fumbled around in the filtered green light of their treehouse. At the time, Steve had thought he had understood why Bucky was crying. The electric tension between them finally released, the feeling inside himself of a magnet snapping into place, it was just so much. And the next day, when Bucky was gone, he was left with only questions and no answers. _Was it me? Was it the kiss? What would have happened between us if Bucky had stayed?_

Now, if something happened—a vision of kissing grown up Bucky passing before his eyes before he quickly shoved it down—if _anything_ happened, would it ruin the friendship they’d rebuilt? Would it drive Bucky away again? Steve didn’t think he could handle losing him a second time. He wouldn’t risk it.

He turned the light off and turned over, letting himself tumble into fretful dreams.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, Steve,” Natasha sighed wearily, just over Steve’s shoulder, where he was very sure she had not been standing a second ago. He slammed his sketchbook closed and leaned an elbow on top casually, turning around to face her.

“Yes?”

“You guys are like, so not subtle,” Natasha said. “So _deeply_ unsubtle. It pains me.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Steve said, knowing exactly what she was referring to.

They were back in Florence, on a field trip to the Uffizi, where they were supposed to be taking notes for a history paper. Most of the class was spread throughout the sculpture gallery, where tall windows let in the cool autumn sun and provided deep window seats to lounge or nap or, you know, seize the opportunity to perfect the details on a sketch of your best friend’s face. Said best friend was currently tucked into a window seat across the room, reading.

 Natasha gave Steve an unimpressed look.

“One of you is going to have to make the first move sometime,” she said. “Just don’t wait too long and miss your chance.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply to this, but Natasha cut him off.

“I just came over here to tell you, before I saw your Pining 101 sketch there, that I’m having a Halloween party tomorrow. I know Halloween is Monday, but obviously we’re going to celebrate Friday night instead. I’ll give you the address to my place, and don’t worry about a costume. I’m taking care of that,” she said. “And obviously, bring Bucky.”

“Bring me where?” Bucky said, unfolding from his seat and wandering over towards them.

“Halloween party, Steve will fill you in,” Natasha replied, and with one last meaningful look at Steve, she glided away.

“She says she’s providing costumes for us. I feel like we should be worried. Should we be worried?”

Bucky looked grim. “With Natasha that could mean anything from stupid hats to lingerie, so yes. But we’re definitely going.”

Steve’s mind unhelpfully provided a detailed visual of Bucky in lingerie. He changed the subject.

“I’m going to drop my sketchbook off at home, and then head to my internship. See you tonight?”

“Do you want me to take your sketchbook back with me? The apartment is out of your way, and I’m going there anyways.”

Steve hesitated, knowing full well that his sketchbook was a incriminating piece of evidence. But it really was out of his way, he’d probably be late if he went all the way home…

“Sure,” he agreed, trying not to look suspiciously guilty as he handed it over. He and Bucky exchanged goodbyes and parted ways.

 

When Steve arrived home later that evening, Bucky wasn’t there. A note on the kitchen table read _‘out with Clint, will be back late’_ , but Steve couldn’t help the sense that something was off. His sketchbook was sitting on his desk at a perfect right angle that for some reason struck him as odd. All the haphazard scraps of paper that had been poking out were tucked in.

Steve was suddenly positive that Bucky had seen what was inside, either accidentally or just through innocent curiosity.

“What have you done?” he said out loud to his sketchbook, opening to a random page. It was Bucky, done in hazy watercolors, standing at their kitchen window in the morning light, clutching a steaming mug. He flipped through more pages, trying see it as Bucky would have. There were reproductions of pieces in the Uffizi, fragments of architectural line drawings, and loosely sketched candids of people around Florence or of their other friends.  But consistently cropping up every couple pages was the same subject, rendered with a detail and emotion that the other portraits lacked.

“Bucky,” Steve muttered to himself.

Here he was lounging on the grass, laughing with his head tipped back.

“Bucky again.”

Here he was dripping wet from a sudden rainstorm they’d been caught in.

“Aaaand again.”

Here he was today, in the Uffizi, curled like a cat in the window seat, reading with his brow furrowed. Steve slowly closed the sketchbook and placed it in the desk drawer like it wouldn’t be there, damning him, if he couldn’t see it.

 

The next morning his alarm didn’t go off, and he and Bucky both overslept, rushing around in a frenzy trying to make it to class on time. The whole day felt like he’d gotten off on the wrong foot. He’d fallen asleep before Bucky returned the night before, the first time that had happened in their time as flatmates. He couldn’t shake the frazzled nerves that the night and morning had left him with, and while Bucky wasn’t acting any differently than usual, Steve would swear he was avoiding eye contact just subtly enough to put Steve on edge.

“What did you and Bucky do last night?” he asked Clint during a class break.

“Hm?” Clint said, looking up from a complicated doodle of a dog wearing a tophat. “Oh, we saw a movie. There weren’t any subtitles, so don’t ask me what it was about. Then I went to bed and he and Natasha were doing something in the bathroom that they said was a ‘dress rehearsal.”

Steve pondered this.

“Do you think he’s being like...weird towards me?”

Clint looked skeptical. “He’s probably just tired. And I heard him screaming about Natasha stabbing him in the eye last night so, maybe he’s traumatized, idk.”

Steve nodded at this non sequitur. He was definitely just overanalyzing. Right?

 

The day passed quickly and Steve’s internship ran much later than usual, as the whole team had been needed for the arduous process of removing a massive, 10 foot canvas from a rotting wood frame. When he stepped outside, a chill on the air made him shiver and pull his coat tighter around him, and darkness had already fallen. Natasha’s words about running out of time echoed in his head as it hit him that autumn was rapidly drawing to a close. Winter would soon be here—bringing the end of their time in Italy with it.

 

He hailed a taxi to head to the address that Natasha had written down for him.  As far as he was aware, no one from their program knew exactly where Natasha and Clint were staying, since they’d opted out of the provided apartments. The taxi wound through the streets on the Oltrarno side of the city, heading up the hill into an unfamiliar neighborhood, and stopped in front of an unassuming black door. Steve rang the bell and someone buzzed him in almost immediately, yelling ‘TOP FLOOR’ over a staticky burst of noise from the intercom. He reluctantly stepped into the rickety, old fashioned elevator and watched the ornate spiral staircase and marble floors pass by. The lone door on the top floor was wedged open. Steve pushed it open and stopped dead on the threshold, mouth hanging open.

One wall of the central room was made up entirely of tall French doors, thrown open to display the glimmer of the Arno river and the city’s skyline glittering beyond that. The high, vaulted ceiling was a rich dark wood that stood out against the stark white walls, which were covered in colorful paintings, some classical, some modern. The rest of the room matched the eclectic energy, mixing sleek modern furniture and antique pieces that looked to be from whenever the penthouse was originally built.

Everyone from their program was there, along with a whole lot of people Steve didn’t know, and he desperately cast about for one of his friends, feeling unmoored. He spotted Clint across the room dressed as—yes, he was definitely a dog in a tophat.

Clint caught his eye, yelling “STEEEEVE!” at the top of his lungs.

Everyone in the room turned and looked at him. Steve fought the urge to turn on his heel and hide in the death-trap elevator, but Natasha appeared at his elbow (how did she keep doing that?), thwarting his plans and pulling him down a hall. She was wearing some kind of slinky gold Beyonce-esque getup with a knife in a holster on her thigh.

“Is that a real knife?” Steve asked as she pushed him into an empty bedroom.

“What took you so long?” she said, ignoring his question and handing him a bundle of clothes and a large plastic cup full of an unidentifiable liquid. “Clint’s special punch,” she said, in response to his very tentative sip. “You better catch up,” she said. “Put that on and get out there, slugger,” she said over her shoulder, already on her way out.  

Steve sighed and took a gulp. The punch wasn’t bad, kind of like sangria on steroids, although Steve had no doubt it was going to pack a lethal punch. He shook out the bundle of clothes to find a perilously small piece of white fabric, a gold crown of leaves, a snake armband, and some sandals. All in all, it could have been worse. He put on the getup and surveyed himself in the mirror. The toga was...fairly slutty. It left most of his chest and more thigh exposed than he cared to acknowledge, but all in all it was a good costume for him. The gold laurel crown looked nice, he thought, and swallowed the rest of the punch to fortify himself as he headed out into the fray.

 

                                                                                            

 

He’d barely made it a few steps into the living room when he spotted Bucky in the opening of one of the French doors. _Oh,_ he thought, before his mind went blank, the alcohol hitting his stomach with a flood of warmth. Bucky was wearing skintight, ripped black pants, a leather jacket, and combat boots. His hair was teased up into a pompadour. And Natasha had done things, magical witch things, to his face, lining his eyes with smoky eyeliner, dusting his cheekbones with gold, and the worst part—his lips were exactly the shade they’d been at the wine tasting, a deep burgundy that made Steve want to die. Lingerie would have been preferable. Bucky spotted Steve and the corner of his mouth quirked up as he took in Steve’s outfit, beckoning him over with one silver-ringed finger.

“Salve, Caesar,” Bucky said, lifting his cup to clink it against Steve’s.

The look on his face as he held eye contact with Steve—something was different tonight, Steve thought. Bucky had the air of having come to a decision. A new assertiveness that made Steve’s stomach flutter with some kind of nervous expectation, even as he felt it could only mean very, very good things for him in the near future.

“How the hell does Natasha live here?” Steve said.

“She just says she has ‘connections’. My bet is on sugar daddy, although I wouldn’t totally rule out Mafia.”

“Both of those seem...alarmingly plausible.”

“She picked out the perfect costume for you. It suits you,” Bucky said.

“And yours is…wow...great,” Steve stuttered. “I love the…” He waved his hand at Bucky’s face.

Bucky smiled and leaned in just a little. Steve’s stomach twisted in anticipation.

“Listen, Steve, I—”

“SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!” A sudden, deafening chorus, out of nowhere, barged into their conversation and completely derailed it. The music notched up, and the center of the living room was flooded with bodies that had previously been scattered. Clint, ever the agent of chaos, was pouring shots of grappa and pushing what looked to be jello shots into anyone’s hands he could reach.

“STEVE! BUCKY! COME DO SHOTS!” he shouted at them, hopping down from the coffee table he was standing on to tow them into the middle of the crowd. A shot was taken, a taste like kerosene burning all the way down Steve’s throat, and then another. The second time he didn’t even cough, feeling pleased with himself. God, that tasted bad. The lights were dimmer now, and his worries were starting to dissolve away, so maybe it was worth the horrible taste?

“Where do you even find jello here?” Bucky asked, half to himself, looking at the little cup of bright red goo that a girl in a Venetian mask had placed in his hand. The girl handed a blue one to Steve, murmuring ‘To match your eyes, handsome,” in his ear before sliding away.

“She didn’t say I was handsome!” Bucky said indignantly, slurping down his jello. Steve found that there was a couch bumping his calves, and he sat down on it, sinking deep into plush purple velvet. Bucky followed his lead. Everything was starting to feel wobbly.

“I really, really like your costume, Buck,” Steve said, tipping his head back against the sofa and rolling it to face Bucky. Everything was heavy and warm and he just wanted to sit here with Bucky, in the midst of all of this.

“I like yours,” Bucky said, drawing a finger up the center of Steve’s thigh, which, he now noticed, was treacherously just out there, just _naked_. Bucky licked his lips and Steve remembered looking at them a few minutes ago? An hour ago? When Bucky had leaned in, about to say something, about to—

There was another commotion in the center of the room. They both turned around as the couch they were sitting on began to move, people pushing all the furniture out of the way to form an open space in the center of the room. Clint was standing on a coffee table again. “LET’S DANCE, BITCHES!” he yelled, and suddenly the music turned up, a ubiquitous pop hit that obliterated any chance at conversation.

“What were you going to say earlier?” Steve yelled in Bucky’s ear.

Bucky shouted something back, but Steve couldn’t hear it. He gestured toward the crowd that had already formed in the middle of the room and raised his eyebrows.

Steve shook his head, but Natasha was there, pushing him toward Bucky and nodding exaggeratedly. Then he was in the middle of the crowd, bodies on every side. His body loosened up and began to move with the music. Bucky was nearby, Steve could see him jumping up and down and shouting the words to something, but urgency had departed as quickly as it had appeared, and Steve was content to dance alone, buffeted by the tides of the crowd. A few more familiar hits played, and then someone turned the lights down even lower, switching the music to something with a low, dirty baseline that reverberated in Steve’s sternum. He spotted Bucky again, finally, only few feet away. Bucky saw him too, and shifted his dancing to match the music. Good lord. Steve had no idea Bucky’s hips were capable of this kind of thing. Bucky’s eyes were half closed, his pupils dark and fathomless, but Steve could feel the tension of his gaze pulling him in. Bucky ran his hands through his sweaty hair, and his shirt rode up just enough to allow Steve a glimpse of sharp hip bones and flat planes.They orbited each other, staying tantalizingly just out reach until Bucky came in just close enough that his hips brushed Steve’s, and oh God, Steve felt like he might lose his shit right there on the sweaty, pulsating dancefloor. Bucky reached out, so slowly, both of their eyes following his movement, and let his hand rest gently on the snake armband circling Steve’s bicep. Steve felt something in his belly ignite, the single point of contact like flames on his skin.

Steve’s heart was hammering, his breath coming quick and fast. The crowd surged around them like a breaking wave. Steve felt his hand drift up, of its own accord, and brushed his thumb along Bucky’s lower lip. His lips were hot, and there was a pulse pounding just under his jaw that Steve had the sudden urge to press his mouth to, taste his sweat. Their bodies aligned, hips synchronizing. Steve leaned forward, closing the space between them— and kissed Bucky. His lips were so soft, slightly salty, pushing back against Steve with gentle pressure. Everything else faded away except Bucky’s body sparking against his and Bucky’s mouth. Bucky angled his head to deepen the kiss, bringing his hand to the back of Steve’s neck.

The music throbbed.

And Steve panicked.

The music, the bodies bumping into them on all sides pushing them together, Bucky’s tongue against his—it was suddenly all too much to process. He jerked away, feeling a ghost of cold air over the spot where Bucky’s hand had been, and stumbled backward. His mind and body felt out of sync, part of him screaming to take a step forward, just one step, and kiss Bucky again, the other part frantically flashing WARNING!! DANGER!! in neon red letters in his mind. Bucky was still standing there, not dancing, looking confused. His face fell, crumbling in slow motion, as Steve took another step backwards. Steve felt sick. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know what to do. He just knew it was his fault that Bucky’s face looked like that, like someone had carelessly trod on his heart—so Steve turned around and fled.

 

A shrill beeping broke through Steve’s unhappy, stressful dreams the next morning, far too early to be humane. He groaned and rolled over, groping blindly for his phone to crush it or throw it across the room, anything to make the noise stop. Why was his alarm going off? It was Saturday. He could already tell he was going to have a massive hangover, and the memory of how royally he’d fucked up with Bucky came rushing back. He groaned again, flopping facedown into his pillow. They’d kissed and Steve had literally RUN AWAY.

Steve dragged his dessicated corpse out of his room, noted Bucky’s unslept-in bed, and into the shower, where he stood in the steam pondering his stupidity. He couldn’t really explain what had happened, in any rational way. He’d frozen up, plain and simple. Until last night, he’d been able to convince himself that Bucky hadn’t reciprocated. That kept things nice and tidy, just the way he liked it. He could deal with the simplicity of an unrequited crush. In fact, if he was really being honest with himself, he loved an unrequited crush. No actual, messy feelings involved. He banged his head lightly on the tile wall. Maybe if he stood here long enough, he’d pass out and be visited by the Ghost of Fuck-Ups Past, come to explain to him why he’d done what he’d done. Or not done. Missed out on the chance to do, possibly forever?

He was pulling on his favorite comfort sweater when he realized why his alarm had gone off. They’d planned a day trip to San Gimignano for today, prior to Natasha announcing her party. Train schedules had been consulted, tickets bought, alarms set as to not miss the train. Well, Steve thought, it was doubtful Bucky, Clint, or Natasha would show up after last night. Getting out of Florence for the day sounded better than wallowing, in any case.

 

Steve was settling into his window seat, trying to decide if he could still take a nap after pounding a triple espresso, when someone cleared their throat next to him. He looked up.

“Hey,” Bucky said flatly.

Steve jolted to his feet for no apparent reason and then just stood there. It looked like Bucky had managed to shower, but his eyeliner hadn’t completely washed off, and he was pale, with shadows under his eyes. He was still wearing the leather jacket from the night before.

“Hi,” Steve replied. Bucky didn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d show up.”

“I didn’t think _you’d_ show up. Nat and Clint are still asleep. Look, I’m going to find somewhere else to sit—”

“No, no, we booked these seats, I’ll just, uh, go home—”

“Shut up, Steve,” Bucky said wearily, and sat down across from Steve, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.  

He didn’t say anything else, not even as the train pulled out of the station, not even as Steve also closed his eyes and somehow fell fast asleep.

 

“I think we should just do our own things today,” Bucky said finally, as they groggily disembarked two hours later. “I have some...stuff...I wanted to check out, so…” he trailed off.

“That’s fine,” Steve replied, a little too fast. “There’s a church I want to see, so, uh, see you later. I guess.” Bucky nodded tersely and walked away down the street. Steve waited for a second, fighting the urge to run after him. They both needed some time to themselves. It was totally fine.

The problem was, San Gimignano was tiny. It was a medieval Tuscan town perched on top of a hill, the whole thing encircled by thick stone walls. There was one central street, and the historic area was basically one piazza, with the church and the imposing lookout towers that the town was known for.

Within two hours, Steve had admired the church, walked around and read every single plaque he could find denoting a historical site, eaten a sandwich—and he’d spotted Bucky no less than three times. It was a very depressing game of Where’s Waldo. They had bought return tickets back for a 7:00 train, and Steve sighed as he checked his watch. It was going to be a long day.

He wandered off onto one of the side streets, finding himself on top of the city walls, with the landscape of Tuscany spread out before him.

The other problem was that San Gimignano was romantic. Like, obnoxiously romantic. Clearly Steve and his friends had missed the advertising campaign that had attracted all of these moony, lovey-dovey couples here. Everyone was wearing matching outfits and taking up the whole sidewalk holding hands. The town was gorgeous, of course, the steep cobbled streets, weathered stone buildings and window boxes full of geraniums straight out of a fairy tale. And the view was no better, he thought, finding a sunny spot to lean against a crenellation and pulling his sketchbook out of his backpack. Miles and miles of gentle rolling hills were laid out before him in shades of gentle greens and soft, faded golds. Vineyards and stone villas dotted the hills under a vivid blue sky. It was perfect. This scene was exactly why people flocked to Tuscany from all over the world.

And here Steve was, with the million dollar view all to himself, painting Bucky _yet again_. This time, it was in his makeup from last night, trying to pinpoint that glimmer in his eyes when he’d been about to tell Steve something important. 

He felt someone approaching, coming up the same deserted side street, and he somehow knew without having to look up that it was Bucky. He had his sketchbook propped up on his bent knees, so he didn’t move to hide his painting. Bucky sat down across from him and looked out over the landscape.

“What a view, huh?” Bucky said, still turned half away from him.

“It’s amazing,” Steve agreed. He chewed the inside of his cheek, hesitating. But then he realized that this might be the only shot Bucky would let him have at apologizing, and he’d better take it. “Hey. About last night—I acted like an idiot, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Steve.”

“No, it’s not fine, I shouldn’t have—I just—”

Bucky cut off his flailings. “Steve. Please stop. I don’t want to talk about it. Can we just, like, be normal again? Friends?”

“Of course! Anything. Whatever,” Steve said heartily.

Bucky looked over at him, finally, almost smiling. “You’re being weird still.”

“I’m not being weird! Look how normal I am—” He resituated himself to face Bucky formally. “So,” he said with the voice of a morning news reporter, “How are you finding San Gimignano, my recently re-established friend?”

“It’s nice. Not too touristy. Quaint. Very...um…cute.”

Steve slumped out of his newscaster posture back into his normal slouch. “So you noticed all the couples too.”

Bucky laughed, the sound music to Steve’s ears. “Yeah, what’s with that? How did we miss the memo?”

“I have no idea, but I have to say, I’m upset we missed our chance to wear matching sweaters.”

“Did you see the one couple, they must have been newlyweds—her’s said ‘I do’ and his said ‘I do...as I’m told’. What the fuck?”

Steve snorted. “What the fuck seems like the only reasonable response to that.”

He closed his sketchbook, setting it aside. Bucky’s eyes lingered on it for a second too long and Steve felt a stab of regret remembering how he’d been so sure that Bucky had looked inside, and apparently seen something that had led to that look on his face last night. But it was immediately followed by a great swell of relief that Bucky was pretending that never happened, so things could at least be alright with them. “Do you want to get gelato? There’s supposed to be really good gelato here,” he asked.

“Do I ever not want gelato? Yes, obviously,” Bucky said. They hopped off the wall and started back into the center of town.

“I heard there’s a torture museum,” Steve said.

“Look around you, Steve,” Bucky gestured dramatically at the couples around them, implausibly all wearing coordinated outfits. “This is the torture museum,” he intoned ominously.

Steve couldn’t help but laugh, the sound echoing off the high stone walls. He felt giddy with the sudden weight that had been lifted. Bucky hadn’t left him, Bucky didn’t hate him, Bucky was making stupid jokes, they were okay, he might, maybe, could possibly still have the tiniest chance of getting to kiss Bucky again without fucking it up. Preferably soon.

 _Good lord_ , he thought, watching Bucky eat gelato out of the corner of his eye. His thoughts were reduced to those of the simplest of simpletons: _I want to put my mouth on his mouth_.

“Wanna show me the church?” asked Bucky. “I heard there’s frescos. And I don’t know if you heard, but I’m a fresco man now.” He waggled his eyebrows at Steve.

“You absolutely still do not know what a fresco is, you filthy liar.”

“It’s like a painting! On a wall! An art conservation intern told me!”

“Fine,” Steve said, standing up from their little cafe table in the piazza. “But you’re probably going to regret this.”

Bucky actually did seem to have become a fresco man, to Steve’s surprise. Apparently all their trips to the art museums around Florence had paid off, and they were both very impressed by the color and detail of the 14th century panels.

“Steve,” Bucky whispered urgently, grabbing Steve’s sleeve as they looked at a Noah’s Ark panel. “Steve. Oh my god. Do you see that?”

“See what?”

“The—that thing! Right there!” Bucky pointed. “It’s like a horse...with a long nose...and dog ears...I think it’s supposed to be an elephant.”

Steve took a closer look. It was definitely an elephant, if you had played a years long, continent spanning game of telephone about what they looked like.

“Italians hadn’t seen an elephant in the 14th century, Bucky! They were just trying their best,” he said indignantly as Bucky collapsed into giggles next to him. The other people in the cathedral were staring. Steve felt hysterical laughter bubbling and decided it was time for them to go.

“Why do you always—whatever is happening to you—at the worst times?” Steve whispered as he steered Bucky out the door. Unfortunately, the exit took them through a gift shop, and Steve had the misfortune of spotting the Noah’s Ark art in postcard form, which, obviously, he bought for Bucky. Which then started the whole thing over on the front steps of the church. After that, the only sensible thing to do seemed to be to buy a bottle of limoncello and drink it lying on a sunny patch of grass and watching the clouds roll by overhead.

 

They were at the top of the tallest tower, admiring the sunset after eating far too much pizza (from the only place that wasn’t exclusively serving romantic candlelit dinners) when Steve spotted something in the distance that made his stomach sink. It was a train, pulling out of the station.

“Shit!” he said, checking his watch. “That’s our train! That was supposed to be our train!” He pointed frantically at the train merrily chugging it’s way back to Florence with two empty seats.

“Wait, what? What time is it? We missed it?”

“It’s 7:05. I totally lost track of time. It’s the last one too, I remember from when we bought them.” Bucky’s tone was too nonchalant for the words coming out of his mouth.

“What do you mean? We’re stuck here?”

“We can go ask to make sure, but…” It finally appeared to strike him exactly what he was saying. "...Fuck, it kind of seems like we might be.”

 

The stationmaster confirmed that yes, that had been the last train of the night. No buses either. The next, bigger town was miles away, and most of the day trippers had driven home hours ago. He looked entirely unconcerned with their plight and was slowly inching the metal grate over his window closed as Steve tried to ask about hostels. A round, older woman bustled in from the back room, took one look at their desperate faces and the man’s folded arms, and started laying in to him in Italian.

“That’s gotta be his mom,” Bucky whispered to Steve.

The stationmaster was grunting out single-syllable answers to her questions, looking for all the world like a surly teen in a middle-aged man’s body. The woman rounded on them, and Steve thought she might yell at them too for a second before she broke into a broad smile. “My son, Luca, he says you are stuck here. We are welcoming people in San Gimignano, please ignore his bad behavior. He is _maleducato._ You need somewhere to sleep?”

“That would be great,” Steve said. “Do you know if there are any hotels that might have rooms open or—?”

“No, no, no, I will help you. Such handsome, clean boys, _bei ragazzi._ ” she declared. She pushed up the grate and reached through to squeeze Bucky’s face in her hand like you would a particularly fat baby. “Handsomes,” she said again, patting Steve on the head like a puppy. Luca rolled his eyes behind her back. She picked up the old-fashioned rotary phone and made a series of rapid-fire calls in Italian. Within five minutes, she hung up and turned back to them with a pleased look.

“My sister’s husband’s cousin, she has a spare flat that she rents out to students that is empty now. You can stay there for the night. Luca and I will take you.”

Steve and Bucky followed them out behind the station, where two vespas were parked.

“This is so sketchy,” Bucky whispered to Steve. Steve shrugged helplessly. It wasn’t like they had a lot of options.

“If we get murdered, it was nice knowing you,” he said.

Luca’s mother was waiting on her Vespa, the engine already running. She gestured for Steve to get on behind her, and Bucky with Luca, who was petulantly ignoring their presence.

A few uncomfortable minutes later, they were dropped off in front of a modest, sparse studio flat above a pottery store, where a woman was waiting let them in. The vespas roared away with a cheery ‘ _Buona notte!’_

“That was the most awkward five minutes of my life,” Bucky said, flopping down at the tiny kitchen table. “How did it get so late? Fucking up train schedules is exhausting. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for bed.”

Steve dropped his backpack on the bed. Hm. Bed, singular. A lone bed. And no couch. Just one smallish mattress, one duvet, two pillows—

“Steve?” Bucky asked, breaking into Steve’s mental cataloguing. “Is something wrong?”

“It looks like we’ll be, ah, sharing. The bed.”

Bucky looked at the bed and at Steve, who knew he was turning red. Again.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s fine.” He nodded with what Steve could clearly see was forced chill. “We’ll definitely both fit. It’s cool. Totally cool. Right?”

“Right!” Steve agreed, as Bucky disappeared into the bathroom. It was truly amazing how bad at lying they both were.

“I found spare toothbrushes,” Bucky said, poking his head out and tossing one to Steve. “There’s towels and stuff too, if you want to shower.”

They took turns in the bathroom and when Steve re-emerged Bucky was already in bed, keeping as far over a possible to one side. He'd taken his jacket and sweater off, leaving him in just his soft green long-sleeved shirt. Steve flicked his eyes to the back of the chair where Bucky'd left his stuff—his jeans were draped tidily over it too. Steve took a steadying breath as he followed Bucky's lead, peeling off his layers down to his t-shirt and boxers, thinking that Bucky had had it easier going first. He'd gotten to undress and pretend to be asleep all on his own. Steve tried not to think any harder about it, and hurried to climb under the comforter and switch off the bedside lamp.

 It was exceptionally dark, the lack of ambient city light and street lights startling for a minute. He settled gingerly into bed, lying stiffly on his back, trying not to breathe too loudly. He could feel Bucky doing the same next to him for a minute, until he sprung up suddenly and rustled around in his bag for a minute before getting back under the covers. A cork popped and he heard Bucky swallow.

“Want some?” he asked Steve, groping for his hand and placing the bottle of limoncello in it. It was nearly empty now. Steve sat up and took a drink. Warm limoncello was not as tasty as cold limoncello, but it _was_ alcohol. They passed the bottle between them once more before it was gone.

The unfamiliar silence of the countryside, like a heavy quilt over them, started to ease into a more companionable quiet. Steve’s breathing slowed. He heard Bucky lie back down on his side, facing Steve, and tuck the covers under his chin like he had in Venice. Steve thought maybe Bucky had fallen asleep as quickly as he had that night, until he spoke suddenly, the words tumbling out in a rush.

“I saw your sketchbook.”

Steve hesitated. “I know.”

There was a pause. Steve could sense Bucky trying to work out what he wanted to say.

“I thought—when I saw your drawings of me, it felt like everything was so clear. Like there was a path right there in front of me, and I’d been stumbling around in the jungle, going in circles, right next to it this whole time. I just hadn’t really let myself —look up, I guess. I was scared. Like, what if you got to know me and didn’t even actually like me as a person? What if I was a letdown or a disappointment?” He sighed and curled in toward Steve, just a little, so his forehead rested against the tip of Steve’s shoulder. “When you don’t let anyone in for long enough…you kind of start to feel like there’s no way the risk you’re taking can be worth it. But...when I saw your drawings, I realized I didn’t need to be scared to let you in. You already were there. And you’d been there for a long time.”

Steve could feel Bucky’s arm against his, and he inched his hand over so their pinkies brushed together. Under the covers, Bucky turned Steve’s hand up and ran his fingers across his palm, tracing the lines there.

“There hasn’t been anyone else like you,” Bucky said. “Not that knew me like you do. Not that I felt like this about.” He pauses. “I _know_ it’s the same for you.”

There was a question left unsaid at the end of his sentence. _So why_ — _?_

“At the party,” Steve said, “You opened the door and I slammed it in your face. I’m sorry. I wanted it—wanted you—so badly that the thought of having you—making it real—”

The world had shrunk to just the two of them, alone in the dark, quiet sanctuary of a treehouse.

“Let’s make it real, then,” Bucky said.

And Steve kissed him.

He tasted like lemons and sunshine. Bucky’s hand came up to curl in Steve’s hair, and Steve had that distinct feeling of a piece long missed and long missing, snapping into place, forming a whole. He let his mouth wander, running along Bucky’s jaw, planting kisses down his neck and collarbone. _“Stevie_ ,” Bucky murmured, smiling into Steve’s mouth, and his insides melted into something golden and buttery. The past and the present blurred together and Steve remembered what Bucky had said that first night— _Somehow, everything is going to be alright._ And it was.

 

Steve woke up to his familiar bedroom in Florence and the mouth-watering smell of frying garlic and onions. He stretched languidly, letting himself enjoy that Saturday-morning feeling of actually waking up well-rested, and rolled out of bed, smiling at the sound of Bucky singing in the kitchen. Pulling the blanket around himself like a cape, he padded out into the kitchen. Rain was streaming down the windows outside, but the kitchen was warm and bright. Bucky’s laptop was open to a recipe website.

“Good morning,” he said, coming up behind Bucky and giving the side of his neck a little kiss. “What are you making?” he asked, taking in the complicated cheese/egg/bacon/rice concoction on the stove.

“It’s breakfast risotto,” Bucky said, like it should have been obvious.

“I’ve never heard of people eating risotto for breakfast,” mused Steve, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder.  Bucky turned around and tucked the ends of Steve’s blanket in more securely.

“You ungrateful wench,” he said, smiling. “Go back to bed so I can bring it to you there like I planned. It’ll be ready in five.”

Steve happily obliged, jumping back into his still-warm bed and listening to the rain. He knew that for the past few weeks, he and Bucky had been existing entirely in their own blissful, domestic bubble and he was totally fine with that. It meant that he got to fall asleep with Bucky squeezed into his twin bed every night, and kiss him awake every morning like fucking Prince Charming. Being in Florence _together_ together wasn’t that much different from how they’d operated before. They still went to class, hung out with Natasha and Clint, managed to cohabitate in the same charming, tiny, one-bathroom apartment. Everyone continued to treat them as a single unit, and they continued to act like one—only now with new and improved PDA.

“This is amazing,” Steve said, as he and Bucky squeezed into his bed and ate risotto. “I feel like a king, eating a cream based carb dish while in bed. You’re a culinary and breakfast in bed genius.”

“Why, thank you, my lord,” Bucky responded gallantly. “I think this one goes into the wins column.”

In the past couple weeks, Bucky had taken up cooking out of nowhere. Apparently he was the opposite of a stress baker—a contentedness cook?—and Steve was thoroughly enjoying it. Steve sighed happily and placed his bowl on the bedside table, tucking his face into Bucky’s chest and wrapping his arms around his waist.  

“What should I try next?” Bucky asked. “Any requests?”

“Hmm...you know what sounds good today? A nice thick, hearty soup. I know soup isn’t really cooking but I have a lot of memories of making soup on rainy Saturdays like this with my mom.”

“That sounds perfect,” Bucky said, kissing the top of Steve’s head.

 

Later, they chopped vegetables side by side in the kitchen, slightly damp from the rainstorm they’d braved for the sake of fresh ingredients. They’d changed into cozy sweaters and sweats, and Bucky was singing along softly to the blues music they were listening to. This was another new development.

Bucky sang while cooking, and it made Steve’s heart do stupid little cartwheels every time. Bucky was happy, happier than Steve had ever known him, and Steve felt absurdly, undeservedly proud that his presence had been part of bringing that about. Standing here, distractedly chopping potatoes into completely uneven chunks that Bucky would probably redo, Steve allowed the thought into his mind that he could do this for the rest of his life.

“Remember that one spring,” Bucky said, interrupting Steve’s thoughts, “I think it was ninth grade, when it rained every day for months and months. It felt like it would never end. And every day, we’d slosh home from school in those old-fashioned galoshes your mom made us wear, and then she’d give us homemade soup, to ‘warm our bones’. It was just like this,” he said, looking around the kitchen. “Warm and dry. A safe haven.” He dumped the leeks he’d been chopping into the pot. “I want my kids to feel safe like that.”

Oh. Kids? Bucky’s kids? This kind of talk was definitely against the rules of their Bubble. They didn’t talk about the future, whether worryingly near or distant, and Steve was surprised to hear Bucky bring up a weighted subject like having a family of his own as casually as he had. Or maybe not so casually, he thought, sparing a glance at Bucky, who was now dicing celery like his life depended on it, and pointedly not looking at Steve.

“Do you...want kids?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. I don’t really think about it that much but—I do. I know it’s cliche, but I guess I want to do better for them. Than my parents did. Be like your mom was for you.”

Steve nodded. “If I can be a tiny fraction of the parent my mom was, when I have kids, I’ll have done a good job.”

“You better hope your kids are a fraction of the hellraiser you were,” Bucky said, snorting a little, “Or else start cultivating that saintly patience now.”

“I resent that! I could have been way worse. I turned out okay in the end!”

Bucky finished his celery and slid it into the pot, checking on the onions that were sauteing. “Please, Steven, look at these potatoes. They’re a disgrace!” Bucky slid Steve’s cutting board over and started evening out the chunks, muttering under his breath about how Steve had clearly not turned out okay if he couldn’t manage simple tasks like chopping vegetables.

“That spring when it rained,” Steve said, “of course I remember it. My mom would always try to dry your hair with a towel—that was when you had it bleached blonde and all spiky, and you’d freak out and be like,” he put on his best angsty teenager voice, “‘It’s a delicate process to get my hair to look this _good_ , Mrs. Rogers, please don’t disturb the _technique_.’”  

“Hey!” Bucky protested, turning from the potatoes. He tried to snap a dish towel at Steve and failed, instead looping it around his waist to pull him in closer. “I didn’t sound like that! And the only reason I didn’t want her to touch it was because it was so fried from being bleached with hydrogen peroxide that I was scared it was gonna fall out right there in her hands. _That_ ‘technique’ was your idea, if I remember correctly.”

Steve ran a hand through Bucky’s hair, currently curling from the humidity in the kitchen. “Hmm, yes, I do remember convincing you to bleach your hair. You were quite the little punk. And based on your Halloween costume, Punk Bucky is still alive and well in there.”

“Why do you think I picked that costume? I _was_ trying to seduce you, after all.”

“I’d follow that outfit anywhere. If only to watch your ass in those pants…”

“Shut up,” Bucky growled, pushing Steve up against the counter and kissing him. Steve ran his teeth along Bucky’s bottom lip, returning the insistence of Bucky’s mouth on his as Bucky’s knee snuck in between Steve’s thighs. Steve slid his hands under Bucky’s sweater, tracing the line of his hipbones. The soup simmered behind them, half-chopped vegetables abandoned.

An unfamiliar chiming sound broke in, and they pulled apart, both looking around trying to pinpoint it.

“Shit, I think someone’s Skyping me,” Bucky groaned, reluctantly leaning out of Steve’s grasp to pull his laptop across the counter. “I forgot I even had a Skype account, who the fuck is calling me in the middle of our—Oh. It’s Becca,” he said, the smile dropping off his face.  
“You should answer,” Steve said, as Bucky continued to stand there looking at the little bouncing icon on his screen with an unreadable expression. Bucky looked at him for a second without moving, and then smoothed his hair where Steve’s greedy hands had left it standing up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and pressed a button.

“Bucky!” A cheerful voice filled their kitchen. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Hey, Becca,” Bucky said, smiling slightly. “It’s good to see you too.”

“You keep answering all my emails with two sentence responses, so I figured if I wanted any other gossip about Italy other than the fact that you are apparently still alive, I should just call. Is it an okay time? I think I got the time difference right, it’s early here, Georgie just woke up but I can get her out of her crib if you want to say hi, she’s getting so big now you’d be shocked—”

“Becks!” Bucky cut in to her ramble, looking mildly harassed. “Italy is great. I’ve been having an  amazing time, just busy with classes and trips and stuff. And it’s a fine time right now, we—I was just cooking some soup.” His eyes flicked up to Steve’s.

“Is someone else there? Do you have friends? A roommate? Can I meet them?”

Bucky’s eyebrows lifted a fraction in a silent question to Steve, and Steve nodded and whispered, “Did you tell her? Does she remember me?”

Bucky did something between a shrug and a tiny shake of the head. Steve walked around to the other side of the computer, pasting his most charming smile on and hoping he didn’t look like he’d just been sucking face with Becca’s baby brother.

He instantly saw the family resemblance between them, although Becca was a more round, soft version where Bucky was sharp.

“Actually, Becks, it’s kind of funny—” Bucky started.

“Oh my god, is that little Steve Rogers?” she shouted directly into the microphone, making them both jump. “From Brooklyn? What in God’s—”

“Hi Becca,” Steve said. “It’s good to see you again. Bucky told me you’re doing well these days. We were randomly assigned flatmates, it was quite a surprise for both of us.”

“How cute! Bucky, how could you not mention that in your emails?”

“I didn’t think you’d remember…” he mumbled, wilting under the force of her enthusiasm.

“You two were so cute back then. Always running around up to something, attached at the hip. It was always you two against the world.” She chuckled. “Everybody knew what was _really_ going on there,” she said conspiratorially, winking at them. “Oh, come on!” she said, when both of them just looked at her, confused. “You guys were like...young love! We all knew you two were more than friends—”

“Becca!” Bucky interrupted, his voice going high and squeaky. “Oh my god,” he muttered, burying his face in his hands. Steve could feel a full-body blush making its way down his neck. This was awkward. This was very awkward, and if they didn’t say anything now it would only be worse down the line.

“Actually,” Steve said, elbowing Bucky. “About that…”

Bucky lifted his face from his hands, looking like a man being led before the firing squad.

“We’re, uh, Steve and I are together now, Becca. Like, dating. Or whatever.”

Becca screeched like she’d won the lottery and started in on a whole gleeful tirade about how she knew Bucky would find the right person eventually, she was so happy for them, she’d always known she was right, it was obvious Steve was Bucky’s soulmate, etc etc.

“Actually,” she said, after a minute, her face growing more serious, “That reminds me of what I wanted to talk to you about, Bucky. Maybe privately would be better.”

“I actually have to go...do laundry,” Steve said. “ByeBeccasogreattoseeyoubye,” he got out in one breath and ducked out of the camera’s view. He mouthed ‘ _Good luck_ ’ at Bucky and went into the bedroom, shutting the door to give them some privacy. He flopped face-first on the bed and tried to summon back his dignity from the deep, dark place it had fled to. That had been...a lot. He didn’t hear any noise coming from the kitchen after a few minutes, so he figured it was probably safe now.

“That’s great, Becca,” Bucky said, just as he opened the door. Oops. He must have put on headphones. “I’m so happy for you guys.”

If Steve hadn’t known Bucky like he knew Bucky, he wouldn’t have realized he was anything less than genuinely happy about whatever Becca had said. But there was an off note in his tone that pinged in Steve’s brain like a sharp chord.

“Yeah...I’ll be better about emailing,” Bucky was saying. “Okay...talk to you later. Bye.”

There was a silence from the kitchen. Steve waited a few beats and then pushed the door fully open, letting it bang against the wall. Bucky was staring at the table, lost in thought. He looked up when Steve entered, standing up and closing his laptop decisively.

“Let’s finish this goddamn soup,” he said, smiling at Steve. Steve felt a rush of relief, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized exactly how much Bucky had changed over the last few months of their friendship until he saw the walls go back up. But he was Steve’s Bucky again now, pressing a quick kiss to Steve’s mouth and seemingly not so bothered by Becca’s news as he returned to measuring and stirring and generally looking more adept around a kitchen than anyone who had been cooking for a grand sum of two weeks had any right to. Bucky handed Steve a carrot and a peeler and started mincing fresh cloves of garlic in an extremely competent way that made Steve lose his train of thought. It was no use spending brain energy dwelling on Becca’s news or why Bucky’s super hot knife skills turned him on so much, Steve supposed.  He had better things to do.

 

Thanksgiving arrived, bringing with it with varying levels of homesickness among the American students, and the whole class gathered in Natasha’s apartment for a makeshift potluck.

“What a...creative assortment of food,” Steve said, looking for a place on the crowded table to set down the pumpkin pie he and Bucky had made from scratch. He wedged the pie in between an impressive cheese sculpture of Michelangelo's David and a punch bowl of chocolate pudding sprinkled with gummy worms.  “Is that just a whole dish of baked marshmallows? I thought that was supposed to be the topping…”

“I made those!” Clint said, bounding up to them. “The marshmallows are the best part, obviously, so I was just like…” he threw his hands in the air. “You know?”

“Yeah, fuck sweet potatoes,” Bucky said.

“I take it that’s Natasha’s contribution,” Steve said, pointing to a sideboard where two dozen wine bottles were lined up, each with a nametag and a bendy straw taped to it. A sign on the wall read ‘No Cups Allowed’.

“The lady sure knows how to throw a party,” Clint said. “Speaking of which, I have no idea where she is. I should probably go find her…” He wandered off in the direction of the kitchen.

Steve exchanged a ‘What can you do’ shrug with Bucky, really the only logical reaction to Clint, and they started making up plates of food. Finding an empty couch to lounge on, they let themselves laze, enjoying the food and the festive atmosphere.

“Mmm, this is the life,” Bucky said, spooning a huge glop of baked marshmallow into his mouth. “I’ve been wasting my time with all the fancy cooking, this is the pinnacle of food right here.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Steve said, smiling, and kissed him, savoring the taste of burnt sugar on his tongue. 

Someone plunked down on the couch next to him, jolting Steve’s mouth off Bucky’s. Bucky scowled over Steve’s shoulder at the interruption, but the girl who’d sat down didn’t seem to notice. Steve was pretty sure she was named Bri, but they’d never talked before, other than a cloyingly sweet congratulations when they’d made their relationship public. Not that you’d know they weren’t the best of friends by the way she started in on a conversation like she was picking up in the middle of something.

“The fuck?” Bucky mouthed to Steve, as she started describing her family’s painfully trite holiday traditions. Steve politely nodded along, waiting for her to take a breath so he could make an excuse to leave. There was a brand new holiday tradition of his own he wanted to get a move on with, and it involved Bucky’s hands, marshmallow goo and sucking it off of fingers and maybe if that went well, sucking it off of—

“Huh?” he said thickly. Bri was staring at him expectantly. She’d clearly just asked him something. Bucky was smirking at Steve like he knew exactly what had been on Steve’s mind.

“I said, do your families have holiday traditions?”

Steve turned the corners of his mouth up into a polite smile. “Not really.” They’d used to, but he didn’t really want to get into it. “Pretty low-key.”  Bucky pretended he hadn’t heard the question.

“Aren’t y'all excited to see your families when you get home?”

Bri stared him down, her intense eye contact making Steve feel shifty. He tried to figure out how to answer the question in a way that wouldn’t sound incredibly pathetic, and the pause lasted for a beat too long. Bri was annoyed now.

“Bucky?” she asked sharply, leaning across Steve’s lap, making Bucky snap to attention. “What about you? Excited to see your family in 20 days? Who’s counting though!” Cue fake laughter.

“Uh, sure. I guess so.” Bucky made desperation eyes at Steve.

“You do know we’re done in like three weeks, right?” She said slowly, like they might be unable to comprehend simple concepts of time. She looked between them with her eyebrows raised. “We all have to go back to real life. Even sweet, adorable lovebirds like you guys. Steve, you go to Columbia, right? In New York? And Bucky, you live in…?”

Bucky glared at her and muttered, “Ohio” around the wine straw in his mouth.

“Uh oh! Trouble in paradise! Are you guys going to do long distance, or…?”

“We haven’t figured it out yet,” Steve said, at the exact same time as Bucky said “Maybe.”

They looked at each other.

“Better get on that,” Bri said, standing up, looking irritated they’d turned out to be such terrible conversationalists. “Study abroad is fun for a while, but it can’t last forever, you know?”

Steve could swear he heard the sound of a bubble popping as she walked away.

“She’s right,” Bucky said, to Steve’s surprise. “We were gonna have to talk about it sometime.”

“I know, I just…” Steve sighed and let his body slide down the couch so he was slouched next to Bucky, who was still curled into the corner. “I just would rather pretend it’s not happening.”

Bucky tucked his feet under Steve’s thigh. “I know. Classic Steve move.”

“Maybe?” Steve echoed Bucky’s words, trying not to sound hurt.

“Not like that. It’s not anything about you, or us. I’m just not sure what I’m gonna do, after this…” Bucky bit his lip, and looked away. “Look, when I talked to Becca, she told me they’re having another baby. They’re trying to buy a house right now. I’m happy for her, I really am, and she said they’d work something out for me to keep staying with them even though they can’t afford much space but...I don’t know. I don’t think I will. It feels like a sign or something...to make a new start, something I choose for myself. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t have any control over my own life.”

“Buck...” Steve started, wanting to say something that wouldn’t be found on an inspirational poster, like ‘ _You can do it!_ ’ or ‘ _I believe in you!_ ’

“You’ll make the right choice,” was what he settled on..

“I’m working on it. Just trust me for now, okay?”

“Always.”

 

 

* * *

 

Steve couldn’t help the big, goofy grin on his face as he hurried through the streets, his breath puffing out in clouds around his face. Winter had arrived, bringing with it magnificent holiday window displays and golden lights strung across the tops of the narrow streets. It was bitterly cold tonight, with remarkably low temperatures for this time of year, according to Steve’s Italian colleagues. He was on his way from his internship to make a reservation at a well-known restaurant Natasha had gotten for them weeks ago. Despite the wind cutting through his jeans and his chilly, runny nose, he felt like a warm ember was glowing in his stomach, keeping him warm from within.

He’d just gotten news, an amazing offer, that he couldn’t wait to share with his friends. And most importantly, Bucky. Steve’s smile widened as he imagined Bucky’s reaction.

He arrived a bit breathless, hoping he was first so he could intercept Bucky and tell him first in private. But it looked like he was out of luck, with Natasha and Clint waving to him through the window at a table right by the entrance, foiling his plan to pretend he hadn’t seen them yet. Bucky was nowhere in sight. As soon as he sat down, Natasha zeroed in on him.

“Either you’re really excited about this meal or…” she studied him, tapping a finger against her lips. “You’ve got something you’re dying to tell us, don’t you?”

Steve wilted a bit under her scrutiny. He hadn’t thought he’d be up to bat quite this fast.

Clint joined in. “Yeah, look at his eyes! They’re all sparkly like he has a secret! And he’s all twitchy…” he stroked an imaginary moustache. “You’re right, Nat. He has News, with a capital N.”

Steve slouched back in his chair. “Alright, alright,” he relented. “I do, but I can’t say anything until Bucky gets here.”

This proved to be more difficult than he expected, as ten minutes and then twenty went by with no word from or sign of Bucky. Steve kept turning around in his seat to check for Bucky coming through the door while Natasha and Clint continued to try to crack him like a safe, with ruthless efficiency. His defenses were eroding fast.

“I’m no good at keeping secrets,” he groaned, running his hands down his face. “Just ask Bucky when he gets here, he’ll tell you about the time I told my mom he had lice—well, never mind.”

“Yes, Bucky this, Bucky that...we all know you’ve been obsessed with each other since you were in utero, Steve, just tell us!” Clint whined.

“Okay, okay, fine! God, you guys are annoying when you want to be. The news is...I’ve been offered a full time conservation job and I’m staying in Florence!” he finished triumphantly.

“What,” came Bucky’s voice, with tragic timing, from right behind him. Steve whipped around.

A gust of cold air hit him from the door just closing behind Bucky. He had an expression on his face that Steve had never seen before—he looked like Steve had just punched him in the stomach. His hands, Steve noticed irrationally, were pink from the cold. Why didn’t he have any gloves? Steve wanted to buy him soft gloves, and slide them gently onto Bucky’s hands, and rewind the last ten seconds so Bucky had never had cold hands and had never looked like that. Why did he look like that? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Bucky started to say something, closed his mouth, started to say something a second time, looked up at the ceiling, and then spun on his heel and walked back out the door.

Without a second look back at Clint and Natasha, Steve lurched to his feet, leaving his coat behind, and rushed out after Bucky, catching the door before it closed and stumbling out into the street. Bucky was striding away, his head tucked down.

“Bucky! Wait!” Steve called after him, jogging to catch up. He caught Bucky’s arm. “I only just found out—I wanted to tell you alone—”

Bucky stopped and turned to face Steve.

“What the fuck, Steve?” he said harshly, pulling his arm out of Steve’s grasp. “I thought we were a team, I thought we were in it together!”

Steve felt the situation spiraling out of his control.

“I thought this was _real_ , Steve! I was stupid enough to let you in, I gave you so much of me, and now—now you’re just going to ditch me like I’m what? Your study abroad fling? A good time until something better comes along?”

“No—No, you’re wrong—Bucky, please—”

“No, I get it.” He said, eyes fairly sparking. “You have your priorities and I have mine. Do you want to know why I was late? I was submitting my paperwork to drop out of Ashwood. I was going to surprise you tonight, tell you that I’m moving to New York to be with you. That’s what I chose! Because I was dumb enough to think you weren’t going to drop me like everyone else does.”

“That’s not what’s happening, Bucky, please just listen to me—”

Bucky was past the point of listening, Steve knew, but he hated the way Bucky’s eyes were darting around like a trapped animal, his jaw clenched rigidly. He tried one more time to grasp Bucky by the hands and bring him back, but Bucky pulled them away and started walking again, ignoring Steve like he wasn’t even there. Steve started after him, but a gust of wind sliced through his thin shirt, making his teeth chatter. He turned around, to run back inside for his coat, but Natasha was already coming out the door, holding it out for him wordlessly. He started to take it from her, looking over his shoulder for Bucky, but somehow, Bucky was already gone, vanished into the darkness.

“I know where he’s going,” Natasha said, holding out Steve’s coat so he could shrug into it. “Fuck, Natasha. What just happened?” he asked, trying to button his coat with shaking hands.

She pushed his hands out of the way and started doing up his buttons herself. Pulling a scarf from inside her coat, she wound it around Steve’s neck, tucking the ends into his collar. “Take Clint’s scarf for Bucky. He looked cold.” Steve felt tears pricking at his eyes, and she rested her hand briefly on his cheek. “It’ll be okay, Steve. I know it will. He’ll be at Piazzale Michelangelo, he always goes there to think.”

Steve nodded, already planning out the route in his mind to get there. It wasn’t far from the restaurant.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling Natasha in for a quick hug.

“Go make it right,” she said, giving him a small push and a smile.

Steve started jogging, heading uphill. It wasn’t very late, but the streets were dark and deserted. The feel of imminent snow was on the air, sending the Mediterranean-blooded Florentines inside for the night. Piazzale Michelangelo was usually a popular spot, overlooking Florence from the top of one of the rolling hills that nestled around the city, but tonight all the benches and stairs where people gathered to watch the sunset over the Duomo would be long empty. Steve started up the winding stairs that led up to the top, taking them two at a time, already out of breath. He really, really, hoped Natasha was right about Bucky being here. His mind kept replaying the lost, betrayed look in Bucky’s eyes underneath the anger. He had to make it right. He had to make Bucky understand that Steve wasn’t abandoning him. Accepting the position in Florence was secondary to being with Bucky. His thoughts jumbled together— _I fucked it up again, this is my fault, this is just a misunderstanding, why are there so many stairs_ — _no!_ _this isn’t about you, Steve, this is about Bucky, if I can make him understand_ —

He finally, finally reached the top of the hill and emerged out into the piazza, scanning for any sign of Bucky. It was desolate, the only light coming from the city spread out below.  He caught a glimpse of movement, a dark shadow backlit against the golden glow below, and realized it was Bucky, leaning on his elbows on the railing, his head resting on his forearms. Steve took a few deep breaths, trying to slow down his breathing, relieved Natasha had been right and he was here. He approached Bucky, taking care to let his footsteps echo so he wouldn’t startle him. He saw, as he came up next to him, that Bucky was crying, the lights reflecting off his wet cheeks. Steve fished around in his pockets, coming up with a crumpled but clean gelato napkin, which he pressed into one of Bucky’s hands. Bucky took it, but didn’t acknowledge Steve’s presence. There was a pause.

“I wanted to tell you first,” Steve said softly. “I wanted to ask you to stay here in Florence, with me.”

Bucky sighed, and his shoulders lowered a bit.

“I’m not leaving you. The job doesn’t matter. Staying in Florence doesn’t matter. You were right, Bucky. We’re in this together. This is real.”

Steve reached out, slowly, and took Bucky’s hand, pulling it until he could reach the other one as well. He tucked them into his own hands and blew on them. Bucky was still looking down, his wet, dark eyelashes shadowing his eyes.

“I love you,” Steve whispered, and Bucky looked up.

He smiled at Steve, a wobbly and fragile thing, and it was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen.  

“I love you too,” Bucky whispered back, and let his forehead come to rest on Steve’s. Steve closed his eyes, tucking their hands in between their bodies. They stood there, pressed together in the vast darkness around them, and a few snowflakes drifted from the sky.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” Bucky said. “It was just….making the decision to withdraw and move to New York felt really big for me, you know? And I didn’t tell you because—I felt like I had to make it for myself. But also, deep down, there was a part of me that was scared you wouldn’t—that I wasn’t….enough. And when I heard you say that, it was like all my worst fears were confirmed, and I was 14 again, and having the floor ripped out from under me. And I just freaked out. I’m sorry, Steve.”

“It’s alright,” Steve murmured. “You’re enough. You’ve always been enough.”

Steve pulled away and unlaced his fingers, finding the ends of his scarf and pulling it off. He wound it around Bucky’s neck, wrapping his wrists in the ends so he could pull Bucky in closer.

“We’ve both been on our own for a long time, haven’t we? But we don’t have to be anymore.”

Bucky cupped Steve’s face in his hands, running his thumbs along Steve’s cheekbones.

“I want to stay with you. Obviously you have to take the job, Steve, don’t even _think_ about turning it down. It’s perfect for you, and I’ll—figure something out. I always do. I want to be like this—like I am with you. The best version of me. Anything else would feel like a step backwards.”

“We’ll figure it out together.”

Snowflakes were landing in Bucky’s hair as Steve studied his face, so familiar, so loved. The world around them was turning white and crystalline. He leaned in and kissed Bucky, feeling a few snowflakes melt between their lips. One of Bucky’s hands stayed cupped on Steve’s jaw, and the other wove inside his coat to rest against the small of his back. Warm mouths, cold teeth, the faint taste of sunshine despite the snow crowning their hair. Steve felt like he could stand there, the hazy golden glow of the city surrounding them, the snow falling fresh and clean from the sky, kissing Bucky for the rest of his life. Possibly even forever.

 

                                                                                  

 

* * *

 

**Epilogue - one year later**

 

“How long do we have?” Bucky asked sleepily from Steve’s lap. They were lounging on the stone steps at Piazzale Michelangelo, ostensibly admiring the view of the city with a bottle of wine, but in reality lulled into dozing by the unusual December sunshine.

Steve cracked an eye open and checked the time. “We should probably head down in about 30 minutes.” He ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair, noting that he still had charcoal under his fingernails from last night in the studio. And now that he was looking, he saw a telltale smudge under Bucky’s jaw. Studio time hadn’t been all that productive last night. Which was too bad, because he’d been kept busy lately at the conservation workshop, where he’d recently been promoted from an apprentice to a junior conservator.  And Bucky had been busy lately too, his freelance website-building business getting more and more inquiries.

But who could be expected to focus on technique when his model looked like this? He leaned down and kissed the tip of Bucky’s nose, making him smile and scrunch it up without opening his eyes. A couple of his pieces of Bucky had recently been displayed in some small galleries, and Steve was getting used to men and women sidling up to him at art shows and asking where he had found his model. Which always seemed to magically summon Bucky out of thin air to plant a dramatic kiss on Steve and then introduce himself as Steve’s muse. Last night in the studio may not have produced any more award-winning paintings of Bucky, but they _had_ managed to break the easel and knock over three of the herb plants Bucky kept buying (and killing). And Steve was pretty sure they’d also left a suggestive trail of charcoal in the stairs that led from the studio on the top floor to the tiny apartment they were renting underneath it.

Bucky finally sat up, stretching like a sleepy cat in the sun, and Steve glimpsed more charcoal-colored fingerprints running along his collarbone.

“Are you ready for this?” He asked Steve, grinning. “Five days in Florence with Becca, Bill, a two year old and an infant.”

“Remind me again why they wanted to travel for Christmas with two babies?”

Bucky shrugged. “Something about Bill wanting to start the ‘European acculturation’ process early. He thinks Georgie and Jamie are going to be like, fluent in Italian by the time they leave. I’m pretty sure neither of them can even speak English yet. And besides,” he said with a grin. “Becca _obviously_ wants to see me—and meet you in person, officially.”

“And you finally get to meet your namesake,” Steve said, watching Bucky turn pink and pleased. “It’s going to be fun, getting to show someone else all of our special spots. Especially since we haven’t had anybody since Nat and Clint last summer.”

“Mmm, that was a fun trip,” Bucky said, leaning into Steve’s side. “Good times in Greece...delicious food, amazing nude beaches, all that pale Irish skin, your poor, poor sunburned dick—”

“There are _children_ here, Bucky!” Steve hissed, laughing, as Bucky cackled next to him. “We need a dick-talk moratorium while Becca and Bill are here.”

“I’ll be good, I promise. You’re much more likely to be the one hearing mortifying childhood stories about me, anyways. Becca loves that kind of thing.” Bucky heaved a sigh and stood up. He held out a hand for Steve, who grabbed it and pulled with slightly more momentum than he anticipated, changing his trajectory at the last minute to kiss Bucky and missing slightly, their faces thonking together. Bucky yelped, and Steve ruefully rubbed his nose.

“I swear to god, Rogers, if you make me have to set your broken nose right now—”

Steve didn’t miss this time.

He pulled away after a minute, wrapping Bucky’s arms around his waist and feeling his solid warmth against his back. Bucky rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder, and they both looked out over the city that had brought them improbably back together after so long.

 

They were home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the masterpost on tumblr: https://calendulae.tumblr.com/post/182808917161/a-stucky-au-big-bang-collaboration-stuckyaubang
> 
> come be my friend!! tell me your favorite flavor of gelato!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://calendulae.tumblr.com)!  
> And I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/calendulaes)! 
> 
> If you want any travel tips on Florence or Italy, or details about where I had Steve and Bucky go, hit me up!


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